Illegal alien arrivals now greater than American births?

[JohnH]

This is getting awfully political (don't we have a Politics forum?), but wasn't the answer to this question in response to "what if people try to escape?"

As I understand it, people aren't supposed to try escape detention. Is this controversial?

[JohnH]

It gets old the implication that those who advocate for legal entry are against immigration is untrue rhetoric.

Face facts- we have good reason to screen those who wish to enter. We face threats we never faced decades ago. I’m thankful for the wisdom that recognizes that and want to protect the people here while allowing for legal immigration.

I think almost everyone in the debate believes:

1. We should screen people who want to enter.
2. We want legal entry.

To make that happen, we need to fund immigration courts.

What do immigration courts have to do with that?

Require migrants to enter at designated ports of entry. Attempts to enter otherwise result in being immediately removed.

I don't see what's "fear mongering" about this. It is logistically impossible to create immigration courts that could handle a flood of millions of arrivals outside of ports of entry.

[HondurasKeiser]

These are your words. I may have misunderstood what you meant, but I was not trying to twist anything. Could you please explain your words, quoted above?
Perhaps they were not quite what you meant to say - what exactly did you mean to say?

Why mention Kensington and not being afraid of black and brown people then ?We all see the humanity in all kinds of people; your statement suggests some of us don’t, which is spurious

Linking Kensington with people of any race was JBG's contribution. I was asking why he felt the need to do so and make the not so subtle suggestion that certain posters were afraid of brown and black people.

Not all “demographic shifts” are equal. Although we’re called to treat all people with love and dignity we can do so without welcoming the destruction of neighborhoods and cultures especially when it involves vice, and death and soul-destroying substances.

I then proceeded to poke at the idea that "demographic shifts" are neutral, anodyne terms. In that Kensington was being held up as an example, I referenced that as an exemplar of a place where demographic shifts have wreaked havoc on that neighborhood. I was not blaming any particular race for that shift, and in that I'm familiar with that neighborhood, I know that there are just as many white people in distress there as there are people of brown and black complexions.

All that to say, I would hope you might know me better at this point than to assume that I would make such a flippant correlation between race and vice.

[HondurasKeiser]

Here is the first use of Kensington in the discourse...and as you can see, I don't think it was me that made a link between Kensington and demographic shifts.

But you were the first to read race into it.

The fact that immigrants are mostly brown and black and therefore this "scary" boom of babies are brown or black babies is merely a fact. I am not sure there is anything else to do with that. And the fact that a "neighborhood going bad" historically in the USA society, has meant it becoming less white and "property values falling" as a result, of things like the Great Migration, etc, is also a historical fact. Wouldn't you agree? Many scholars feel there is a racial component. And linking Kensington to it...well, seems pretty sus.

Well again, because Barnhart thought "Demographic Shift" was a morally neutral term with which to describe mass immigration, that suddenly opened the discussion to something much wider and more encompassing than simply immigration. Which is why neighborhoods changing, Kensington as an example, were brought up. No one linked black and brown people to failing and dangerous neighborhoods until you did in what seemed to be an attempt to discredit the poster that mentioned it.

[Soloist]

Alligators? You can swim with those (except during breeding season) and the care they need will cost too much.

[joshuabgood]

But you were the first to read race into it.

The fact that immigrants are mostly brown and black and therefore this "scary" boom of babies are brown or black babies is merely a fact. I am not sure there is anything else to do with that. And the fact that a "neighborhood going bad" historically in the USA society, has meant it becoming less white and "property values falling" as a result, of things like the Great Migration, etc, is also a historical fact. Wouldn't you agree? Many scholars feel there is a racial component. And linking Kensington to it...well, seems pretty sus.

Well again, because Barnhart thought "Demographic Shift" was a morally neutral term with which to describe mass immigration, that suddenly opened the discussion to something much wider and more encompassing than simply immigration. Which is why neighborhoods changing, Kensington as an example, were brought up. No one linked black and brown people to failing and dangerous neighborhoods until you did in what seemed to be an attempt to discredit the poster that mentioned it.

In mind we were always discussing immigration...which is far and away people of color. Which made the Kensington reference odd as well as the conflating of substance abuse and crime with immigration though that is a commonly repeated myth by folks right at the top of government. Immigration, or more simply, migration, is in fact demographic shift so I have no issue with that term.

[joshuabgood]

This is getting awfully political (don't we have a Politics forum?), but wasn't the answer to this question in response to "what if people try to escape?"

As I understand it, people aren't supposed to try escape detention. Is this controversial?

It's about how immigrants are being treated and spoken about. That is all.

[barnhart]

I have mostly avoided this thread because I hoped it would fade away. I find it embarrassing that mennonites should be so vulnerable to these ideas. We should have institutional memory of being the uprooted and unwanted and should rightly identify with those in similar situations. We should have some theological immunity to the social/spiritual contagion of owning and controlling territory, we should have a keener eye for a heavenly kingdom, not earthly.

I am not really embarrassed because I don't hold Mennonites in higher regard than anyone else, but I am taken back by the degree to which these xenophobic, nationalist ideas infiltrate our ranks.

Even the title of this thread speaks of an anti- historical, self inflicted blindness, all births here are American and for good reason. We gained this ethical insight at terrible cost, to shed it so easily feels disrespectful of those who suffered.

[HondurasKeiser]

I would go out on a limb and make the claim that it’s a morally neutral term. It a sociological descriptor far more than it is a conspiracy theory. I don’t think it explains the situation in the United States very well but I do think it explains the context in certain European countries; particularly France and The UK. As an idea, The Great Replacement is the provenance of Renaud Camus, hardly a man of the Right. He makes no claim that there’s a worldwide cabal of elites orchestrating the demographic collapse of native Europeans. Simply, that it’s happening.

In Le Grand Remplacement (2011), Camus asserts that a “replacist elite” of domestic and international political and financial elites is deliberately promoting mass immigration to “replace” native Europeans. Renaud Camus is usually seen as a far-right writer and conspiracy theorist - I'm curious why you do not see him that way. He was writing about France, but versions of the theory have also been prominent in U.S. white-nationalist circles and mainstream political rhetoric.

I don't think "replacement" is a neutral term. The word "replacement" implies that we are being "replaced" by those other people. The conspiracy theory says that there's a group of elites who are intentionally plotting to replace us with those other people.

As far as I can tell, I'm still here. My children haven't been replaced either. We have neighbors from other parts of the world. I think the Bible encourages us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Since we're still here, that seems like a good thing to do.

I'd invite you to read this review of him and his work in The New Criterion and then get back me on whether you think it matches what you read about him on Wikipedia.

[Valerie]

I have mostly avoided this thread because I hoped it would fade away. I find it embarrassing that mennonites should be so vulnerable to these ideas. We should have institutional memory of being the uprooted and unwanted and should rightly identify with those in similar situations. We should have some theological immunity to the social/spiritual contagion of owning and controlling territory, we should have a keener eye for a heavenly kingdom, not earthly.

I am not really embarrassed because I don't hold Mennonites in higher regard than anyone else, but I am taken back by the degree to which these xenophobic, nationalist ideas infiltrate our ranks.

Even the title of this thread speaks of an anti- historical, self inflicted blindness, all births here are American and for good reason. We gained this ethical insight at terrible cost, to shed it so easily feels disrespectful of those who suffered.

You cannot compare the two scenarios at all.